Re-Gluing corals, what is the best?

[alton]

We buy them when they are sticks 2 to 3” long and we either use super glue or two part epoxy and for a year it holds fine until it grows huge and we make the mistake of knocking it off while cleaning our tank. Now our little frag is 4” x 6”, 8” tall, and heavy.
Now what do I do?
The rock is covered in coralline algae, you can’t take the base rock out to dry it off so you get a good seal? The two part works sometimes, sometimes not. Do you take the coral out, dry off the bottom, place a whole tube of super glue on the base, let it set up and place it on the live rock, holding it for a minute till it sets up. And then crossing your fingers hoping it will last? That is what I did last night and although I have had corals for years I am still a novice when it comes to SPS.
And I know that some of our corals will encrust to help support themselves but others do not and that’s the ones I am having trouble with.

[FireWater]

I take the coral out of the tank and carefully dry the bottom not the base of the actual coral. Then I use "more than enough" super glue and dip the coral back into the water for a brief second, pull it back out for a second to let a film form on the fresh glue, then place it back into the tank where I want and "squish" it around a little until I feel it start to hold.

[Bill S]

I do what John does - and I don't use 2 part. Most folks have had the best results with Loctite gel super glue. The epoxy heats as it cures.

[Europhyllia]

I use super glue -preferably the BRS stuff.I might do a little twisting to work the glue around itIf it can hole my foot long gorgos I bet it would hold your 6" sticks :)

[CoryDude]

I also use a glue accelerator. So far seems to be a super fast strong seal.

[alton]

Went home last night and everything is still fine. Now it becomes a wait and see until the coral puts on a couple more inches of growth.

[marshallorama]

This might be a silly question, but I'm very new to this so please bear with me. :) However, if I say something that is incorrect or misinformed, please correct me.

I'm trying to learn about coral and I was uncertain about the gluing process, or the un-gluing process rather. Once you have placed the coral where you want it in the tank, how do go about removing it if you need to relocate it later on down the road? For that matter, how do you properly remove the piece of coral from the frag (is that right? or is the whole thing, coral + base considered the frag?) when you purchase one from the LFS? Something inside me says that brute-force is not the ideal method for separation, but I could be wrong. :)

-Marshall-

[jcnkt_ellis]

Well placed brute force :) The bond between superglue, the frag, and the plug is firm but somewhat fragile most of the time. I either carefully use barehand force to remove frags (especially lps that have a nice hard dead skeleton under the polyp) or the use of a thin knife/blade between the glue and the plug for sps or softies. I never trie to break the bond between the frag and the glue.

[mkengr45]

I use aquastix reef epoxy and super glue gel. I make about a .5" ball of epoxy, then poke a small hole in it and fill the hole with super glue, then press my sps frag into the hole and form it around the base. I then put super glue on the bottom of this epoxy/frag and stick it wherever. For me, this makes one heck of a strong frag. Not weak or brittle at all.

Randy